Guests at Wednesday's 20th-annual meeting for UNITY of Greater New Orleans included most of the national stars for fighting homelessness, because of the Housing First conference that's being held in New Orleans at the Astor Crowne Plaza.

Barbara Poppe, head of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness and the federal point person for homelessness spoke, as did Nan Roman, head of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, who "invented" the idea of ending homelessness in 2000, when -- armed with research showing that new strategies like Housing First keep even the most complex homeless people housed -- she urged cities and states to create 10-year plans to end homelessness. Nearly 250 have now done so.

Even Poppe's agency recently released its own 10-year plan for the federal government called Opening Doors.

The city of New Orleans and Mayor Mitch Landrieu's new appointee, homelessness czarina Stacy Horn-Koch, used Opening Doors at a template for the city's new plan, released in November. Roman went through its strengths and weaknesses point by point at the meeting, noting where the plan lacked detail about who will pay for and do what.

When Poppe took the podium, she pointed at Roman. "Do everything she says" to improve the plan, Poppe said, noting that she saw two advantages in New Orleans: the seasoned outreach teams and caseworkers at UNITY and a "fully engaged" partner at City Hall.

"I wish I had in every city what you have here: a mayor fully committed to ending homelessness."